


Feathers

by LMX



Series: Comment Fic [12]
Category: Leverage, Supernatural
Genre: Backing up from LJ, M/M, Perception Filter (Doctor Who), Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 17:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13722333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: "He wonders why there are always feathers under Eliot's bed" ~ Backing up from LJ





	1. Feathers

Nate had seen them before; odd to perceive, like he could only see them out of the corner of his eye. When he was drunk they were clearer. He could see the soft edges and the brown speckled markings - darker towards the tip. There were feathers under his bed. Not many, but enough to draw his alcohol-hazed attentions in the fuzzy early morning light, waiting for Eliot to come back to bed now that the night was over and the fear of nightmares was fading.

He reached out, still more drunk than sober and his hangover screwing with his depth perception, and it felt like his hand passed right through the feather he'd been reaching for. His fingers brushed the wood, no soft silky feather touch. He squinted at the object, debating its existence, pulling back.

Maybe they were drawn on the wood, and optical illusion. He reached out to press his hand against the floor again, feeling for engraving.

"What are you looking at?" Eliot asked, a draft rushing through the room from the door behind him which was shut. Nate's head hurt.

"The feathers under your bed," Nate said slowly, looking down at the ground where his fingers were pressed. The feather wasn't there any more, but a couple of inches to the left, as if the breeze had caught it as Eliot had come in. He chuckled at his own thoughts - it was on the wood, it had to have been his hand that had moved.

"You can see those, huh," Eliot said, pushing Nate aside to take a seat on the bed and folding so that he could lean over the side next to him, pressing his chin to Nate's shoulder.

There was another draft and Nate looked accusingly at the closed door. As he looked away again a feather floated past his peripheral vision. He didn't look at it directly - he had a feeling it might just disappear - but he followed it as it fell to the floor.

He glanced back to see if Eliot had seen it too, and his breath caught.

"Eliot..." he whispered, keeping his eyes on Eliot's face, but studying-without-looking at the two wide brown arcing wings that hung over the both of them.

"There's been feathers falling for years," Eliot said, not meeting Nate's gaze, staring at the newest feather on the ground. "But I don't think they're growing back." Eliot smiled tiredly. "I haven't looked. I can't look."

"What are you?" Nate breathed.

Eliot chuckled harshly. "Unworthy of God's love," he replied. He reached up and stroked a gentle line across Nate's forehead with two fingers. "Sleep now," he murmured.

And Nate did.

-

Nate woke with a start, immediately rolling onto his side to look over the edge of the bed for the feathers on the ground.

"Man, if you throw up right now I'm walking out that door," Eliot murmured into his shoulder blade.

"There were feathers," Nate said, bemused. He swept his hand across the bare floor, gathering up nothing but dust.

"Hmm?" Eliot asked, rolling away from him.

"Umm... feathers. On the..." Nate gestured uselessly. "Strange dream," he finished, shaking his head.

"Drinking yourself unconscious'll do that to ya," Eliot replied blandly.

"Yes..." Nate said distantly.

He rolled over to wrap his arms around Eliot, pressing his hands to where tawny wings had erupted from in his dream. Eliot twitched under his hands, but moved into the embrace. Nate frowned, thinking too hard for this early in the morning.

"You couldn't be more worthy," he whispered. "Of anyone's love."

Eliot just chuckled and moved closer. Something warm settled over them both, and Nate imagined being encircled by those huge wings as he settled back down to sleep a little more.


	2. Anti-Perception Filter Filter

It's a photographic filter - ridiculously expensive, and the only one of its kind he owns. He bought it off a guy in a bar because he'd checked the price on his phone and for once the guy didn't seem to be ripping him off. He'd expected it to be broken or flawed at that price, but to get hold of the technology at least, to get a chance to take it apart and study it, was too appealing an opportunity to miss out on.

He'd put it on his brand new camera - top of the range and still not as expensive as the filter itself - and taken a reel of shots with it. Taking them for processing had been a bit of a blast from the past, he hadn't had a camera that wasn't digital in years. He hadn't seen anything interesting in the photos. Just... maybe a bit of brightness around people, nothing special. Disappointed, he'd put the camera away when the next job came up and had forgotten completely about the filter. He was a rich guy, it hadn't been that much money to him.

He pulled the camera out a couple of months later to take some photos for new IDs - some company that were still using stick-on photos. He'd not even thought about the obscure filter until he'd put the negatives on the scanner, and then... well, this.

He stared at the photo up on his screen, wondering what he was supposed to make of it. Eliot Spencer - through a cheep 'bought-it-from-a-guy-in-a-bar' anti-perception filter filter - had clear as day wings.

Alec closed the window and switched out the negatives for the next set. Wings. In every photograph. Huge, tawny brown wings which darkened towards the tip, like a huge owl's wings, arching over his shoulders and scooping in narrowly at his waist.

Was he an angel? Alec wondered briefly. Or, (he glanced at his comic book shelf)... what if he was a mutant!? Either way he'd found a way to hide them from them all this long...

Shutting down the scanner, Alec put a new roll of film in the camera - expensive stuff these days - checked the filter over carefully (like a wonky filter was going to make wings appear) and headed in to the office. He needed more pictures. Just to be sure.


	3. Not Telling

Nate kinda thinks he should stop drinking.

Especially when his boyfriend is stood over there, totally still, but still whipping up the air in the room like there's twice as much to him as can be seen, and his ex-best-friend-arch-nemesis is stood on the other side of the room with eyes black all over like some kind of horror flick.

It could be a weird dream, but he's seen something of the barely concealed violence in their eyes since the first time they met face to face back in McRory's. Something more than Eliot's frustration at a con blown and him taking a beating off some punk ass kid. More than Sterling screwing with Eliot's friend and his horse.

This time, though, it's different. No witnesses. No one but him, barely concealed by the door frame and only just liberated from Sterling's holding cell, and it looks like the two of them are cutting loose. The air between them is crackling with power way beyond their own personas. Way beyond anything human.

Eliot grins, wicked-slow, and Sterling replies in kind.

"Ramiel," Sterling said, and the word was familiar to Nate, though he couldn't place it or the language of origin.

Eliot only smiled wider. "Crowley," he replied. "I heard rumours you were in for a long eternity in hell."

"I heard you'd fallen. Something about taking human wives and sharing forbidden knowledge?" The black faded out of Sterling's eyes and he started pacing aggressively across the room. Not towards Eliot, but from side to side, as if considering him. Like an animal sizing up the opposition.

"Something like that," Eliot smirked. "Now I'm guarding The New Hope." Eliot looked sideways, straight at Nate. Held his eyes for a second.

Nate stepped out of hiding as if it was what he'd intended to do all along. Sterling only smiled wider. "Oh, now. Isn't that just perfect," he chuckled.

"Why do you think your masters sent you to him in the first place?" Eliot asked, as if Nate wasn't even there.

Nate cleared his throat sharply. "Just what are the two of you not telling me?" he asked.

Sterling grinned wickedly. "Oh, Nate. You have no idea what you're in for."


End file.
